Doris Hart

Doris Jane Hart is a retired tennis pro whose legendary career is an inspiration for success despite seeming impossibilities. Hart was born in June 20, 1925 in St. Louis, Missouri. She was infected with osteomyelitis, a disease that causes swelling in the bone tissue, when she was only fifteen (15) months old. With the disease affecting her knee, it seemed impossible for Hart to pursue an athletic career, much more to strive becoming a sports legend. Then Hart smashed the barriers of impossibility when, at six years old, she started playing tennis as a therapy. The treatment was so successful and the young Doris Jane showed so much prowess and potential in the sport that the family supported her athletic pursuits. By her teenage years, Hart has established herself as a force on the tennis court, belonging to the Top 10 rank and staying there, until 1955.

Despite her bowed legs, Hart was a brilliant sensation on the court. Her amazing control of the tennis racket made her innovate and develop a great variety of shots that were deemed ‘crisp and stylish’. She was a great doubles player, winning eleven (11) major championships with Shirley Fry. In 1951, she earned the distinction, along with two other women tennis players, to be a Wimbledon Triple Crown awardee. In 1954, she pulled off the very same feat, earning the No.1 ranking with a triple crown at the U.S. nationals and winning the USTA Service Bowl Award the very same year.

After retiring from tennis in 1955, Hart retired and took up a teaching profession.

Hart’s amazing tennis career boasts of thirty-five (35) Grand Slam titles, which includes six (6) triumphs in the Singles category, fourteen (14) in the Doubles, and fifteen (15) in the Mixed Doubles category. She published a tennis book entitled, “Tennis with Hart.”